About the game…
Unless you have been living under a rock for the past thirty years, then you have probably heard about Super Mario Bros. 3. Released in Japan in 1988 and everywhere else in 1990, this was the final traditional NES Mario game to be released on the Famicom/NES before Mario made his 16-bit debut on the Super Famicom/SNES. The All-Stars version, which is the game I played, was released in 1993 for the SNES. That is the version I will be playing, and you can find the video past all my text BS.

While the original Super Mario Bros. on the NES helped define what a quality side-scrolling platform should be, the third entry in the Mario trilogy was the series’ defining moment with some amazing innovations; a map screen, brand new power-ups and unique themed worlds. This would be Mario’s most innovative game, until Super Mario World came out for the SNES in 1990 in Japan and a year later elsewhere.

How is this durpthrough going to go?
Doing an insightful commentary for a game that has been let’s played to death and one everyone knows about is pointless, so there will be no subtitle commentary. You will notice fade-out jump cuts in later videos (starting with Desert Land), because I will be cutting out the following: any infinite 1up tricks that I can pull off (ie you don’t really need to watch the whole thing), Toad Houses, repeats of Hammer Bros. battles, the matching card game, or hilarious fuck ups yours truly happens to do.The release schedule is whenever I feel like it, but I am going to try (if I’m not a lazy fuck) doing a video a week. We’ll see how long that lasts.

Filed under: Durpthroughs, Media Tagged: Casual Gaming, Durpthrough, Super Mario Bros. 3]]>https://pietriots.com/2017/09/17/smb3-vid1/feed/0mattmclennan87Why I am excited for Metroid: Samus Returnshttps://pietriots.com/2017/09/04/why-i-am-excited-for-metroid-samus-returns/
https://pietriots.com/2017/09/04/why-i-am-excited-for-metroid-samus-returns/#commentsSun, 03 Sep 2017 17:13:46 +0000http://pietriots.com/?p=14441Continue reading "Why I am excited for Metroid: Samus Returns"]]>Depending on the circumstances, I am fine with being wrong. Can’t always be right about things, but much to my shock it turns out Nintendo had two new Metroid games in the works. One, which is coming out soon (September 15th!), is a full reimagining of the Game Boy title Metroid 2 for the 3DS. Metroid Prime 4 for Switch is still to be determined, but I guess the terrible Metroid fanbase* did not deter them after all.

*Fact: I still hate the Metroid fandom and think they are a blight on the series.

So with it’s impending release, I thought it would be best to talk about why I am excited for this new Metroid game.

#1: The last Metroid remake that was made under Sakamoto’s supervision was an amazing game.

Metroid: Samus Returns as mentioned is a remake of Samus’ sole Game Boy outing. This is not the first official remake the Metroid series has seen, however. That honor belongs to Metroid: Zero Mission, a complete remake of the original NES classic for the Game Boy Advance. Fellow Pietriot Grubdog sung his praises for Zero Mission, and I share the same opinion; it is an amazing game, one of Nintendo’s best original titles on the GBA. It took the original NES experience and made it an amazing game for the 21st century.

While Sakamoto is not directing Samus Returns for 3DS, he has gone on record saying he is being hands on in his producer role. The director is someone by the name of Takehiko Hosokawa, who doesn’t have an Wikipedia entry yet. Judging from the footage and playthroughs from NoA Treehouse, he knows what makes a great Metroid game, and with Sakamoto on the producer role, he’s no doubt coaching him like the other legendary Nintendo producers when they get ready to retire.

#2: It proves when Nintendo gets involved, things get done. This game is being developed by MercurySteam after all.

MercurySteam has talent, the problem is that the talent was not given good direction when it came to them developing Castlevania games. The two Lords of Shadow games and Mirror of Fate for 3DS were a mixture of mediocre to bad, and Mirror of Fate had falling damage in a 2-D Castlevania game. So from Konami to Nintendo, what changed?

Simple, Nintendo. Whatever the prototype Metroid game was that was shown to Sakamoto, it impressed him enough to put MercurySteam in charge of programming the game while the Kyoto team handled the design direction. Strangely enough, MercurySteam wasn’t revealed to be the co-developer of this game until after it was fully revealed during E3 this year. Considering how terrible the Metroid fanbase is, Nintendo probably withheld the identity of MercurySteam so they could avoid the fanbase from going full meltdown towards MercurySteam like they did Next-Level Games.

#3: It proves that the Metroid fanbase is still terrible.

So I was proven wrong about new Metroid games existing, but you know what I wasn’t proven wrong on? Shitheads, like former IGN editor Matt Casamassina via Twitter, still unhappy despite the fact a new Metroid game exists, it’s being released on the 3DS (he casually calls a Speak and Spell… for some reason) and not Switch. Or still trying to push AM2R as the real remake. Seriously, Metroid fans, from the bottom of my heart, fuck you.

And there you have it, why I am hyped for Samus Returns. Looking forward to September 15th!

With Kirby celebrating his twenty-fifth anniversary this year, let’s take a short trip through his very first Game Boy adventure. In case you are wondering why I cut out the boss rush, they are exactly the same fights and you really don’t need to watch them a second time.

Filed under: Durpthroughs Tagged: Durpthrough, Kirby's Dream Land]]>https://pietriots.com/2017/07/23/kirbys-dream-land/feed/0mattmclennan87So I heard you don’t like Switch’s voice chat app…https://pietriots.com/2017/07/20/so-i-heard-you-dont-like-switchs-voice-chat-app/
https://pietriots.com/2017/07/20/so-i-heard-you-dont-like-switchs-voice-chat-app/#commentsWed, 19 Jul 2017 23:51:42 +0000http://pietriots.com/?p=14430Continue reading "So I heard you don’t like Switch’s voice chat app…"]]>In only a couple of days Splatoon 2 will be out and I will be playing it immensely, because what I played of the recent Splatfest was awesome. However, with that said, Nintendo released the Nintendo Switch Online phone app and everyone on the internet is having a meltdown over it being terrible and shitmonglers like Liam “Tamaki” Robertson are taking advantage of the situation by concern trolling with… a picture of a DS with a Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection game because there was voice chat on that, sort of, and it sucked.

Oh no.

Yet there is an irony to this; no, I didn’t expect the app to be perfect but the fact of the matter is that the complaints are being issued via a computer or smartphone devices on whatever social media is being used. You want to know what is available, readily, for free, for computers and iOS/Android? A voice chat app called Discord.

Yes, Discord. I mentioned it prior in a recent post I did (and just so you guys know, no, we are not inviting people to our server, it’s just for us but don’t take it the wrong way we all love you for being our readers), and it works very well. We’ve been using it constantly for voice chatting and text chatting, and it works wonders when we are playing online games. Before that, we just used Skype, but Skype has gone to absolute shit. Considering the hundred of hours we have put in several online games that have appeared on the 3DS and WiiU, Nintendo not having a dedicated voice chat system never bothered us, at all. In fact, I have my laptop sitting beside me whenever I’m playing any game.

So, really, if you want Nintendo to improve the Switch app, fine, but blowing it out a proportion and being a shit-heeled concern troll isn’t constructive criticism. If you absolutely need a voice chat app, and you use a laptop, computer or smart phone device that uses iOS or Android, just get Discord. It has the Pietriots stamp of approval.

So let’s get one thing out of the way first; my respect for major Third Party Publishers, and their developers, who I will call out of disrespect “Thirds” is at an all-time low. I called it back in October last year that Switch’s Third support would be mired by bullshit, and lo’ and behold, it turned out I was right. In recent weeks, we’ve had some dip from THQ Nordic complain about Switch’s lack of power, despite, you know, games like Snake Pass being ported in under a couple of weeks. Then we had the creator of the Oddworld series spout these wonderful comments about Satoru Iwata. So in short, when Thirds make themselves look hilariously incompetent and they get mocked for it, I am as happy as a pig in mud because it gives me and my fellow Pietriots on our Discord server something to mock and discuss.

Yet something has to give, and it turns out a recent comment from good ol’ Cliff Bleszinski, who now heads up developer Boss Key Productions, has made it impossible for me to find a meme reaction pic worthy of how brain dead he has made me.

But first, let me use an old image from a previous piece I did. Yoshiaki Koizumi himself with two Switch Joy-Cons. Both have a Shoulder Button and Back-Trigger button (L/R and ZL/ZR respectively. And the number of face buttons and analog sticks.

So Cliffy B has a new game called LawBreakers, which can run on Switch . However, there is one major problem. From the mouth of Cliffy B. himself:

“There’s a possibility for everything and anything in this world. I think the hardest part with the Switch is the controls. Look at the game that we have right now, and we just literally by the skin of our teeth put the entire game and the control pad that the PlayStation has. That means that we could probably make it work for the Xbox One in someway, right? But if you’re looking at the Switch the base controller that’s on the unit, it doesn’t have as many buttons.”

I have a theory; either Cliffy B was looking at just one Joy-Con unattached from the Switch console and didn’t realise there was another one, or Switch has the power to make you go full dumbass. Single Joy-Con controls are meant mostly for local multiplayer. Split Joy-Cons can be used together a’la Wiimote and Nunchuk style (or in the Joy-Con grip) and have the same amount of buttons as the other guys; hell the Pro Controller is a standard game controller with gyro built into it! As you can imagine, his reasoning is not just flawed, it has gone beyond the realm of stupid. I mean, this is as stupid as a publisher putting a game like Monster Hunter on the PS4, westernizing it to the point it doesn’t look like a Monster Hunter game and completely ignoring the game people want localized on 3DS and Switch!

Oh, wait, that is a thing too. Damn.

Filed under: Durp! Tagged: Cliffy B, Durp!, Next-Gen, Nintendo Switch, Weakness]]>https://pietriots.com/2017/07/13/durp-cliffy-b-switch-doesnt-have-enough-buttons/feed/3mattmclennan87Completing the Pokédex: Manaphyhttps://pietriots.com/2017/07/01/completing-the-pokedex-manaphy/
https://pietriots.com/2017/07/01/completing-the-pokedex-manaphy/#commentsSat, 01 Jul 2017 03:28:38 +0000http://pietriots.com/?p=14324Continue reading "Completing the Pokédex: Manaphy"]]>The other week I achieved something I hadn’t since I was 12 years old; I completed the Pokédex, I caught them all. Technically though, it wasn’t them all. It was only the 301 available in the latest game. Nintendo long ago realised the insanity of capturing now 802 Pokémon and dropped “Gotta Catch ‘Em All” from the branding, providing smaller, region specific Pokédexs in the game. The importance of the complete Pokédex, or National Pokédex as it is known, has been downplayed too, a post-game unlockable in recent generations and not appearing at all in Pokémon Sun and Moon. Completing the Alola regional Pokédex didn’t provide the satisfaction I thought it would, and the in game reward, a stamp in my in-game passport, was as hollow as the certificate of completion I received 18 years ago. I have decided that I will not be fulfilled until I really have caught them all. All 802 bastards, including the worst thing in Pokémon, “event” Pokémon, so yesterday I dug out my Pokémon games from the last 4 generations to figure out how to get Manaphy, the seafaring Pokémon.

Last weekend I synched up all my Pokémon to Pokémon Bank. With Sun and Moon lacking the National Dex, Bank would be my storage place for all my earlier Pokémon. I’ll probably talk more about the cumbersome process of rolling all the critters over but for now all you need to know is that it is time consuming and painful. To ease this I stole created a spreadsheet to track not only the Pokémon in Bank, but also the ones stored in earlier games Pearl, Platinum, Heart Gold, Leaf Green, Sapphire, Ruby, Black and My Pokémon Ranch.

And I found this:

I had seen Manaphy, but hadn’t obtained it. Also I somehow had its mutant child Phione in Heart Gold. How was this possible? I knew I had been conned into buying Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia for the sole purpose of obtaining the Manaphy egg. I did an internet search and the instructions for obtaining Manaphy basically read as follows:

Buy Pokémon Ranger (sucker)

Do the Manaphy mission

Transfer it to Pokémon Pearl or Diamond

Wow that simple! Ok, maybe I hadn’t done part two. So I booted up Pokémon Ranger to find that the Manaphy mission was marked clear. Hmmm, exploring further I found the following screen:

Oh ok, maybe I haven’t redeemed it or something…

Apologies for the “screenshots” by the way, I don’t have any fancy game capture cards or anything like that. If you can’t see, the middle box reads “Send a Manaphy Egg”.

Seeing it was sent, I figured I must’ve done it via the “Mystery Gift” feature of Pokémon Pearl. So I booted that up and checked the status of the “Wonder Cards” received via “Mystery Gift”.

This… isn’t Manaphy

A mild panic is beginning to set in. Had I reset my game and lost Manaphy? Will I have to slog through Pokémon Ranger again? The internet tells me that the Ranger mission could only be activated through an online service that died 3 years ago. Also shit had I really not played Pokémon Pearl since 2010? I swear it was only yesterday! What the fuck have I done with my life?

I’m expressing my panic by blindly running through the Sinnoh region on Pokémon Pearl. Maybe it really had been 7 years, I don’t recognise any of these places! It says I’ve played 200 hours of this game but that time feels wasted! Maybe I should’ve just focused on my studies or learning a language instead?

I stumbled into a PokéMart, hoping retail therapy would ease the insecurity.

Wait! Who’s this?Manaphy!

2600 steps or so later.

And doesn’t she look delighted to have been released from years of purgatory!

So there you have it, the internet’s instructions should be amended to:

Travel back in time to buy Pokémon Ranger.

Do the Manaphy mission.

Transfer it to Pokémon Pearl or Diamond.

Pick it up from the PokéMart.

Only 60 or so Pokémon to go now. I’ll probably have to hit up some of my old friends from the university Pokémon club I founded in my last semester of study for some of the other event Pokémon though. For now, I have little Manaphy.

Filed under: Game Journals Tagged: Manaphy, PokeDex, Pokemon, Pokemon Ranger]]>https://pietriots.com/2017/07/01/completing-the-pokedex-manaphy/feed/2Egg_CatchrabicleScreen Shot 2017-07-01 at 10.58.48 ammanaphy1manaphy2manaphy3manaphy4manaphy5May_Nuzzling_Manaphy_by_grlplysmeCrash Bandicoot was shit 20 years ago and is still shit today.https://pietriots.com/2017/06/30/crash-bandicoot-was-shit-20-years-ago-and-is-still-shit-today/
https://pietriots.com/2017/06/30/crash-bandicoot-was-shit-20-years-ago-and-is-still-shit-today/#commentsFri, 30 Jun 2017 02:47:34 +0000http://pietriots.com/?p=14213Continue reading "Crash Bandicoot was shit 20 years ago and is still shit today."]]>I was disgusted today to see that the remaster no one asked for, Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, had sold out of pre-orders at some stores. As someone who played a lot of video games in the late 90’s, I can tell you that these three games are shit. Outside of Japan, there were precisely 20 days when Crash Bandicoot was relevant as a fun, 3D platforming game. But then Super Mario 64 came out and shat all over not just the original Crash Bandicoot but all future Crash Bandicoot games.

If you’ve never played the original trilogy, consider yourself lucky. The titular hero Crash meanders down extremely narrow corridors collecting fruit by smashing open crates. Sometimes a bottomless pit might be in the way. It’s as entertaining as it sounds. Occasionally the game would turn into a 2D platformer by keeping the camera perspective constant but turning Crash 90° degrees. These sections were the highlight because there were the only ones where you felt you had any real control over Crash’s jumping. And that’s the core of the game’s problem; the jumping never felt good, it was extremely difficult to change Crash’s trajectory once you’d left the ground. For a game where 50% of the gameplay is jumping, this is a critical error of design. One that in 3 games over three years, was never rectified.

To be fair, Crash Bandicoot 3 was a decent game because they threw in a lot more variety in the levels and adopted a hub world layout. The variety came in the form of motorbike levels, jetski levels and my favourite; riding a cute baby tiger along the Great Wall of China. This variety hid the appalling and boring level design and the hub layout meant you could avoid the disgracefully disgusting scuba diving levels.

I started writing this last night but the thought of the scuba diving levels made me nauseous so I went to sleep, only to be wracked by nightmares or Crash Bandicoot in a scuba suit. I think at the time it was some weird reference to a sexy Lara Croft render in scuba gear.

Anyway what was I getting to? Oh yeah, idiots with bad taste. I took to social media to gently inform people that these games are complete rubbish. You can follow that link but I’ll screencap it here.
We seem to have entered some sort of twilight zone where mere criticism (as shallow and blunt as my criticism was) is interpreted as some sort of authoritarian action against people’s ability to waste their time. I’m labeled the Fun Dictator, The Fun Police and it was suggested that I wasn’t letting people enjoy things or that I found it unfair. Also Jake accused me of sour grapes. I’m not stopping anyone from desperately trying to relive a time when they were too young to know better. I’m not barricading game stores to prevent people wasting their scarce government handouts on frustrating games. I’m merely letting people know that they have appalling taste. I might have to explore this elsewhere but people don’t seem to be able to disagree anymore, even over something as simple as tastes in games, instead critics are dismissed as oppressors.

The point stands though. People are only interested in the N.Sane trilogy remaster, because they’re between the ages of 25-30 and want to relive their carefree days as a kid. That’s fine, but anyone who claims that these games are still fun, or had any influence on the development of 3D platformers, other than illustrating what not to do, is deluding themselves. The original Crash trilogy only serves as a curio to show that even Naughty Dog, an acclaimed game studio of the highest pedigree, can have a few rough and raw games in their catalogue that they no doubt learned from. Naughty Dog’s executives made the best decision of their lives when they shed Crash and his baggage to develop new intellectual property. This decision set them on the path to their place of respect among game studios.

The reviews are coming in now and Crash is getting the same middling scores now that it got all those yearsago. I recommend a quick read of those. First they demonstrate how far professional game journalism has come and secondly, the Wired author correctly identifies that limited three dimension movement would’ve been a novelty in the 90s, which is pretty much exactly what the ancient Gamespot and IGN reviews say.

Now I’m going to slog my way through the broken and archaic mechanics of Pokémon Red to relive 1999.

I absolutely loved Koizumi hosting the Switch reveal in January and the first real Nintendo Direct of 2017. While Reggie and Bill have proven their hosting chops for North American Directs and Shibata for the European Directs, Koizumi hit it out of the park in the Switch reveal. He had that Iwata charm to him, something which has been sadly missed after Iwata’s death in 2015.

PLATINUM GAMES IS MAKING ANOTHER GAME WITH NINTENDO.

Please never change, Kamiya.

After Star Fox Zero, which Grub and I both loved and everyone else who can’t learn game controls hated, one has to wonder if this Nintendo-friendly third party developer is making another game with Nintendo. One has to think it’s possible; what it could be, nobody knows. With the high profile cancellation of Scalebound and Nintendo’s willingness to save Japanese products like with Bayonetta 2, this could be the next big Platinum save for them. On the other hand, it might not be, Microsoft renewed the Scalebound trademark… for some reason. Don’t know why.

THERE WILL BE NO F-ZERO OR METROID AT E3 AND FANS WILL HAVE A MELTDOWN

I will be there to laugh at you.

THERE MIGHT BE A NEW F-ZERO OR METROID AT E3 BUT IT WON’T BE WHAT THE FANS DEMANDED AND THEY WILL DOWNVOTE THE YOUTUBE TRAILER VIDEO AND MAKE A CANCELLATION PETITION

And here I thought gamers were fully for creative expression and not censorship.

SUPER MARIO ODYSSEY WILL BE THE BIG GAME AT E3 EVERYONE WILL RUSH TO PLAY

There was a famous gif that made the rounds during E3 2016 last year of somebody with their arms out, rushing to play Zelda: Breath Of The Wild. Considering this is the next major 3D Mario game to be released, and with how amazing it looks, I am hoping for the same reaction and the amazing gifs that will come from it. I mean, come on, meme images happen all the time at E3.

So with that said, feel free to give your E3 predictions in the comment section below.